


missing

by dottie_wan_kenobi



Series: practice prompts [14]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Katara and Zuko are friends dammit, POV Katara (Avatar), Pre-Relationship, kind of, this is still post war but also modern au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23017711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi
Summary: Written for the prompt, "Taking a picture together to print and hang later."
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: practice prompts [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626685
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	missing

**Author's Note:**

> So my pal whateverrrrwhatever and I started doing some what we call practice prompts, where we give ourselves about 20 minutes to write a roughly 300-600 word fic based on a prompt. Originally, they were just gonna be posted on Tumblr but I wanted to bring mine over here. This is very lightly beta-read.

She doesn’t know why she does it.

It’s not like there aren’t pictures of them together. Suki has taken plenty of them, and the official photographers even more than that. Being the Avatar’s masters, Katara, Zuko, and Toph are always being asked to stand together for portraits. The ones taken of them in less formal moments are usually photobombed by the others—Sokka chomping down on a snack, Aang sneezing himself across the room, Toph mid-shout, or Suki laughing until tea shoots out of her nose. 

Katara _loves_ those pictures. The memories attached to them always manage to make her smile, even when they’re sad. Framed, they join others on her walls of her mom, her dad, Gran-Gran. There’s even one of Momo sleeping on Appa’s head. 

But there’s something missing. 

At first, she can’t tell what it is. Everyone’s face has made it to her wall, even Uncle Iroh, so it’s not that some- _one_ is missing. And there are aerials of home, of Omashu and Ember Island, of the Northern Water Tribe and Ba Sing Se. It’s not a place, either.

She still hasn’t figured it out by the time Zuko comes to see her. He fills up her home in a way she’s unused to, his presence even bigger than Sokka’s. Unsurprising, really—he’s a king, even if he doesn’t go by that title, and his home is a palace. Hers is big by Southern Water Tribe standards, but tiny compared to his. 

They hug when he steps in, and she shuffles him off to the living room while she prepares tea. When she comes back, he’s standing by the wall, taking in all of her photos.

Setting the tea tray down, Katara asks, “Have you seen the one of Suki painting Aang’s toenails?”

Laughing, he nods to it. “I forgot how funny that was.”

She comes to stand by his side, and like always, she immediately notices how much taller he is than her. They’ve both had this problem, of being highly aware of each other, for a while. Thoughtfully, she says, “Pink isn’t really his color.”

“No,” he agrees, grinning. He smiles more and more these days, but it never ceases to take her aback at first. 

And like a shot, she realizes—oh. That’s what’s missing. His smile, his _real_ smile.

“Zuko.” She pauses, eyes sweeping over his face. “Do you want to take a picture with me?”

He glances at the wall, then back to her, and she wonders if he knows what she’s thinking. Either way, he says, “Of course,” and poses with her when she pulls out her camera. He has to duck down so they can be more or less even in the frame, and she jokes about his height, and—she captures it. He’s not looking at the camera but at her, and he’s beaming, and later, when she prints it out and puts it up on the wall, it goes next to a picture of her parents when they were young and happy.

She doesn’t know why she does it.


End file.
